2020

The G.O.P. Race to Primary Trump Has Already Begun

John Kasich at his Ohio primary victory on March 15, 2016 in Berea, Ohio.

By Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images.

Donald Trump’s health-care Waterloo two weeks ago was a moment made to order for Ohio governor John Kasich, and he did not let it go unexploited. “This cannot go away,” he told host Dana Bash during a State of the Union interview with CNN. “There are too many people’s lives that are at stake if we fail to be able to reform this program. This is serious, serious stuff, and the idea that it’s a quaint notion that Republicans and Democrats ought to work together—that’s how broken that city is.”

Trump ran and won on the idea that Washington was broken, and that “I alone can fix it.” But with health care mired in the swamp he spoke of draining, Kasich has been putting down unmistakable markers for a possible 2020 challenge to Trump while subtly reworking his brand along Trumpian lines—the consummate outsider, but competent. Since Kasich exited the G.O.P. primary in May of last year, he wrote a book rumored to be critical of Trump; buttressed his international accolades; and thrust himself to the forefront of the trade and health-care debates currently roiling Washington. And despite the reality that Kasich is closing in on the end of his second and final gubernatorial term, his campaign and super PAC apparatuses remain in operation, and two of his long-time aides launched a nonprofit political organization to champion recurring themes from the governor’s 2016 campaign in January.

The Ohio politician has on various occasions pushed back on the narrative that he is planning another White House bid. “I don’t see it, I just don’t see it,” he said during his recent CNN interview. But when pressed by Bash on whether he would “ever” run for president again, Kasich hedged his denial. “You don’t close the door on anything,” he responded.

VIDEO: Clinton, Kasich, and Carson on the 2016 Campaign Trail

If Kasich were to declare himself a challenger to an incumbent Republican president before the 100-day mark, it would be nothing short of treasonous. “Nobody wants to be seen as mentioning any names, because that would be seen as disloyal. Everyone assumes that President Trump runs for re-election, and I can’t imagine another scenario at this point,” G.O.P. pollster Frank Luntz said. “The normal rules of politics don’t apply to him, and we have learned that again and again and again.” Ambitious politicians like Kasich—or Marco Rubio or Tom Cotton—are at pains to sound statesmanlike.

But ambition has a very long half-life. So the challenge for Kasich is to build a critique of the administration and burnish his own brand as a man above D.C. business as usual—he alone can fix it—while cultivating the Trump voters he’ll have to win over should an opportunity arise. Kasich’s rhetoric about the administration’s struggles has been an exercise in political needle-threading. He’s even defended the president—a subtle way of throwing shade, since the implication is that the vaunted businessman can’t even manage his own people. As G.O.P. leaders and Cabinet secretaries scrambled to contain the fallout after Trump signed his first executive order on immigration, Kasich toldThe Washington Post he thought the president was “ill-served by his staff” but added that he didn’t want to be a “clanging bell” or “negative force against” the Trump administration. Similarly, during his interview with CNN the Sunday following the American Health Care Act failure, Kasich came to the defense of Trump. “The president is not supposed to be crossing all the T’s and dotting all the I’s, that’s an excuse,” Kasich told Bash. “I think his instincts . . . would have been to cut a deal and bring the Democrats in and get this thing done,” he added. Subtext: when you’re already mired in the swamp you spoke of draining, your instincts may not get you very far.

In the meantime, Kasich has been making his own instincts plain, playing his favored role of lone adult in the Washington playpen. One of 16 Republican governors to accept the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, Kasich pushed himself into the health-care debate, meeting with President Trump individually and with the Senate Finance Committee to discuss the Obamacare repeal. And in February, he joined Senator John McCain at the Munich Security Conference.

These dots are not hard to connect. “Anytime you have a governor of a state like Ohio going on those congressional delegation trips, the light starts going off because that is the whole ‘building up your foreign policy credentials’ [thing],” a former White House staffer and G.O.P. campaign strategist said in an interview.

“He has almost a messianic view of himself. I truly believe that he
thinks he was born to become president of the United States.”

Kasich has also been a prolific author, writing op-eds for outlets that include Time, The Washington Post and The New York Times. Again, the tactic is to avoid direct personal criticism while making policy differences—and the Trump administration’s failings—crystal clear.

The most obvious sign of Kasich’s internal deliberations is that three weeks into Trump’s presidency, Chris Schrimpf and John Weaver, who served as Kasich’s campaign communications director and manager, respectively, launched a 501(c)(4) nonprofit political organization called Two Paths America. In an e-mail, Schrimpf said that the goal of the organization is “to promote policies that bring our country together, including a balanced budget amendment and American leadership abroad.” In addition, Kasich’s latest book, Two Paths: America Divided or United, borrows the same theme and reportedly positions the governor as a critic of the president—it hits shelves this month. Schrimpf said the book and the organization are not linked but do “share some of the same themes about the need for our country to take the higher path.” He also denied that Two Paths America is laying the groundwork for a 2020 Kasich run. “The governor wants the president and our country to succeed. He is not contemplating a run of any kind,” Schrimpf wrote.

Kasich, too, pushed back on this suggestion. “The reason I have an organization there is so that I can maintain a voice,” he said on CNN. “Not just as governor, but when I am not governor, I don’t intend to go away,” he said. “To those that want me to go away, I am not going away.”

Kasich’s 2016 message of sane, competent adulthood made him a respected figure in many quarters (even centrist Democrats had a sneaking admiration)—but, except in Ohio, where he beat Trump by 10 points, he didn’t inspire nearly enough lever-pulling. This year, however, Trump is already bulldozing the political landscape, and a number of the qualities that hindered Kasich during the G.O.P. primary could become strengths, depending on Trump’s legacy. “In any campaign, candidates for president look for an avenue of space that is not being occupied by other candidates,” Andrew Smith, a political science professor and the director of the survey center at the University of New Hampshire, said in an interview. “The space that Kasich was able to fill was that of the more moderate mainstream Republican candidate.”

Supporting the Medicaid expansion was a G.O.P. heresy, and earned Kasich the reviled sobriquet of “RINO” (Republican in name only) and “Squish” on the campaign trail. Laura Ingraham said that Kasich and President Obama were “practically spooning.” In four years, however, Kasich’s Medicaid decision could be a boon to his chances, not a liability. Already last month’s health-care imbroglio revealed the popularity of the Medicaid program—even in states Trump won. And if the populist vision Trump and White House senior strategist Stephen Bannon have for America continues to stall and promised reforms never come to fruition, Kasich’s experience as governor of Ohio and his 18 years in Congress, during which time he was one of the architects of the bipartisan Balanced Budget Act of 1997, could be viewed as evidence that he knows how to negotiate across party lines to achieve success—something Trump has yet to demonstrate.

Much like Trump, Kasich is trying to position himself as a Washington outsider, someone who can change the city by bringing a new approach, in this case the near-mythical dream of bipartisanship in the service of solving problems. Depending on what happens in the next few months, it may be a powerful sell.

As another Republican strategist noted, a Kasich 2020 bid should be viewed “through the John Weaver lens.” Weaver, of course, has become known for positioning candidates as the “moderate alternative,” he said. “A lot of people confuse moderate with pragmatic.” But in many ways, Kasich isn’t that moderate. A balanced-budget is far from a moderate position. The abortion issue is perhaps where Kasich’s conservative bent really shines through. Earlier this year, while he didn’t sign Ohio’s infamous “Heartbeat Bill” into law, he did approve a ban on abortions at the 20-week mark—representing one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country. As the Postreported in March of last year, Kasich signed 17 anti-abortion measures into law since he took office in 2011. “He’s the classic undercommit, overperform guy,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List, told Politico earlier this year. “Certainly on this issue, it’s hard to find a governor or anyone who has a better record.”

Much as he professes his even-tempered maturity, Kasich has committed his own share of gaffes, and has his own short-fuse, though it’s not attached to Twitter. There was the time when he told a young woman at the University of Richmond that he didn’t “have any Taylor Swift concert tickets.” Or when he gleefully recalled that he won his state Senate seat thanks to “many women, who left their kitchens to go out and go door to door and to put yard signs up for me.”

“He has a brash side to him. A side that can be somewhat dismissive of other people,” Smith said. “He’s not the kind of person who is going to suffer fools. Sometimes that is a good thing on the campaign trail and sometimes that can wear.”

Kasich speaks to reporters after a closed meeting with Trump, on February 24, 2017 in Washington.

By Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

Matt Mayer, the president of free-market think-tank Opportunity Ohio, who made an enemy of Kasich over a 2011 report that was critical of the state government, has “no doubt” that Kasich will run in 2020. “He has almost a messianic view of himself. I truly believe that he thinks he was born to become president of the United States,” Mayer said in an interview. “This will be his third try, and I would not at all doubt that they have started filming commercials comparing him to Ronald Reagan, who won on his third try.”

“No matter what the data says, John Kasich believes he is right,” Mayer asserted. “That is just the way he works. He has always worked that way, and he doesn’t really care what anybody else has to say.”

Mayer means it as trash-talk—but that kind of monomania may be necessary to primary a president.

These Vintage Campaign Photos Show Politics Has Always Been a Wild Ride

John Kerry after the Democratic National Convention at the University of Massachusetts Boston, on July 29, 2004.

“The Boston Pops were playing along with fireworks and James Taylor was performing onstage. John Edwards’s and Kerry’s handlers were negotiating who’s going to go onstage first. The candidates definitely had their off-stage and onstage personas, and as a photographer I call it ‘getting behind the blue curtain.’”

Photo: Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

Kerry after an event in Jefferson City, Missouri, on August 5, 2004, during a “Believe in America” tour.

“This was a spontaneous event, it wasn’t supposed to happen. I was in the right place at the right time. After the event there was scheduled filing time, which allows the media to file their work from the day. The band was playing as Kerry was moved from one room to the other, and I guess he just couldn’t help himself, and he just picked up a guitar and started playing. I happened to be the only one there because everybody was filing. That’s who Kerry is; he’s the life of the party, a very social man. I was waiting there for the chance that he would do that.”

Photo: Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

Hillary Clinton leaving an event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in July 2007.

“Hillary’s one of the tough ones because she’s got photographers that are longtime, social friends, and so they’re going to get access and people that she doesn’t know aren’t. She’s got a very controlling campaign, so every other photographer was back in the designated area. I wasn’t supposed to be in this area, but she saw me, smiled, and waved to nobody, then quickly shot the look of death to the staffer who let me in.”

Photo: Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

John Edwards at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, on August 16, 2007.

“This was a miserable day. It was over 100 degrees, heavy humidity, so as a photographer you think, What’s my best opportunity to make one picture in any given situation? This is just a handshake picture unless you concentrate on what makes it different: the campaign picture and the pen, media is surrounding him, and he’s got a wireless mike on him. You have to look for your best chance to make a lasting image. There’s always some little aspect you can capitalize on.”

Photo: Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

A pro-Bush rally outside the Texas Capitol in Austin, Texas, in November 2000.

“This is after the general election that just went on for ever and ever. Bush was still the governor of Texas, so he was going into the office every day, but I think this was a staged event on a Saturday. So I see this picture and I start making this image and I realize this is actually a senior staff member of Bush’s campaign, who I’d only ever seen in a business suit. That was funny.”

Photo: Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

Dennis Kucinich supporters before a Democratic debate in Durham, New Hampshire, on December 9, 2003.

“The Kucinich people are the most fun and they always have this traveling drum circle. I was trying to make a fun picture as we were waiting for the debate to start. It’s no big deal as an image—what you see is what you get—but it’s interesting from a composition standpoint, and there’s a nice light on there. Kucinich is a nice guy. He’s like Dole—hard to shake and very comfortable in his own skin. I was introduced to him at a rally one night and the funny thing is, often you get behind the blue curtain and it’s all talking and you’re part of the conversation, which is helpful for a writer, but as a photographer it’s very frustrating because you want to be ignored so you can observe and make pictures!”

Photo: Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

George H.W. Bush during the general election in Omaha, Nebraska, on October 28, 1988.

“I wasn’t supposed to be on the tarmac here as Bush is vice president and running for president at the time but I knew a press guy on his campaign and I was literally just a kid and he took pity on me. I like this image because it kind of tricks your eye. Because of the flatness of the light and the time of day Bush is almost like this cardboard cutout that someone’s carrying. The composition is nice; the six heads behind him of the Secret Service agents and the priest (who was the president of Boys Town at the time) come together to make a complicated image. And there are little hints, like the banner, and the boom mike, and you can see a couple of American flags, which tell you that this is a campaign event. If Bush’s head wasn’t framed between the guys directly behind him and if his arm was in a different place, the whole composition would be off and the photograph would be wrong to the eye.”

Photo: Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

John Kerry after the Democratic National Convention at the University of Massachusetts Boston, on July 29, 2004.

“The Boston Pops were playing along with fireworks and James Taylor was performing onstage. John Edwards’s and Kerry’s handlers were negotiating who’s going to go onstage first. The candidates definitely had their off-stage and onstage personas, and as a photographer I call it ‘getting behind the blue curtain.’”

Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

Kerry after an event in Jefferson City, Missouri, on August 5, 2004, during a “Believe in America” tour.

“This was a spontaneous event, it wasn’t supposed to happen. I was in the right place at the right time. After the event there was scheduled filing time, which allows the media to file their work from the day. The band was playing as Kerry was moved from one room to the other, and I guess he just couldn’t help himself, and he just picked up a guitar and started playing. I happened to be the only one there because everybody was filing. That’s who Kerry is; he’s the life of the party, a very social man. I was waiting there for the chance that he would do that.”

Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

Hillary Clinton leaving an event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in July 2007.

“Hillary’s one of the tough ones because she’s got photographers that are longtime, social friends, and so they’re going to get access and people that she doesn’t know aren’t. She’s got a very controlling campaign, so every other photographer was back in the designated area. I wasn’t supposed to be in this area, but she saw me, smiled, and waved to nobody, then quickly shot the look of death to the staffer who let me in.”

Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

John Edwards at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, on August 16, 2007.

“This was a miserable day. It was over 100 degrees, heavy humidity, so as a photographer you think, What’s my best opportunity to make one picture in any given situation? This is just a handshake picture unless you concentrate on what makes it different: the campaign picture and the pen, media is surrounding him, and he’s got a wireless mike on him. You have to look for your best chance to make a lasting image. There’s always some little aspect you can capitalize on.”

Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

Barack Obama during a Democratic debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, on January 5, 2008.

“This is the main filing center where everybody watches the debate and they all have their laptops out. The new thing at the time was small video cameras. Everyone was shooting videos all the time, which was a new phenomenon, and that took over the campaign in 2008.”

Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

On the street waiting for a candidate to show up in Concord, New Hampshire, in January 2008.

“This wasn’t Ron Paul’s or Hillary’s campaign headquarters, and that’s Ronald Reagan in the window. This was a spontaneous rally, which happens all the time in New Hampshire. Everybody shows up to everything there. As a photographer, looking at the people that make up the political process is something you can overlook. You’re trying to make pictures of the politician when you turn around and realize there are just as good, or better, pictures behind you. They might not show the actual candidate, but they’re meaningful.”

Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

Bob Dole leaving an event in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in October 1996.

“I love this type of picture where you have the bright spotlights on but it’s still behind the scenes, which speaks to the complex and weird nature of a campaign. You’ve got the Secret Service and the campaign staffers and the rally paraphernalia, and this person who is the reason all this is happening, but they’re also very separate from and isolated by this event that they’re the centerpiece of.”

Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

Jesse Jackson at an event at the black-history museum in Greenville, South Carolina, 1987.

“This is a good one. It’s for a New York Times magazine cover piece on Jackson and I hadn’t done anything behind the scenes with a candidate at that point. I was young, probably around 20 years old, and I got three or four days to travel with him with very close, personal access. The museum was a converted residential home and was packed inside, so I sat outside on the porch as I figured there wasn’t going to be a picture. I heard Jackson start to tear up, pushed my way to the front to see this amazing scene. Not only is he emotional but you’ve also got this statue on the wall so the picture just came together. It made itself.”

“This was a unique opportunity that’s really hard to get nowadays—a storytelling moment with four different candidates in it. It’s crazy to even think that you could make an image that has this weird visual narrative happening, but that also works as a photo as far as its composition. There’s tension there; there’s a story behind it.”

Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

Dole at an event in Louisiana, 1996.

“Dole’s campaign had a campaign plane and a ‘zoo’ plane. Traditionally, all the staff and mainstream media ride on the campaign plane with the candidate and the technicians, photographers, and cameramen go on the ‘zoo’ plane, which was more relaxed. The campaign plane broke down so everyone crowded onto the ‘zoo’ plane, and I don’t think there were even enough seats. Back then you could still smoke on planes, so the cabin was filled with blue cigar smoke. Several guys grabbed plates of BBQ so there was also this Cajun feast in the back of the plane and Dole was stuck onboard with everyone. You couldn’t even move from one side to the other it was so crowded. The thing with Dole that people never really realize is the guy has an amazing sense of humor. He’s a very relaxed politician; you never see him nervous and he was always quick with a joke. He was pretty relaxed about the whole situation. Nowadays, they’ve really taken a lot of fun out of the process.”

Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

Before a Pat Robertson victory party on Super Tuesday, March 8, 1988, in Atlanta, Georgia.

“This was one of those weird situations. I saw these boys dressed identically and started to make some pictures and immediately their mother comes in to stage-manage the scene. She was helping to set up the picture and it actually makes a better photograph with her in it. Those hats are probably sitting in an attic somewhere to this day; they’re like trophies. The presidential race is such a unique American experience. It’s a traveling circus.”

Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

George W. Bush leaving a press conference in Iowa, in 2000.

“It’s my philosophy to be in the wrong place, so to be out of place in the hallway where you might not make a picture as opposed to being inside the press conference where you are going to make a picture. In the magazine world you have to make a picture that has some legs and that can last a couple of weeks. If you’re a newspaper or wire photographer you have to have a picture every hour but it’s going to be replaced by the thing you shoot an hour later. It’s a different type of pressure. The reporter in the photograph actually died in the second Gulf War. He was riding with an Air Training Command doing live reports for 30 straight hours and he got a blood clot in his leg from not moving. He was a good reporter. Here, he’s trying to corner Bush and get some kind of answer out of him.”

Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

A pro-Bush rally outside the Texas Capitol in Austin, Texas, in November 2000.

“This is after the general election that just went on for ever and ever. Bush was still the governor of Texas, so he was going into the office every day, but I think this was a staged event on a Saturday. So I see this picture and I start making this image and I realize this is actually a senior staff member of Bush’s campaign, who I’d only ever seen in a business suit. That was funny.”

Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

Dennis Kucinich supporters before a Democratic debate in Durham, New Hampshire, on December 9, 2003.

“The Kucinich people are the most fun and they always have this traveling drum circle. I was trying to make a fun picture as we were waiting for the debate to start. It’s no big deal as an image—what you see is what you get—but it’s interesting from a composition standpoint, and there’s a nice light on there. Kucinich is a nice guy. He’s like Dole—hard to shake and very comfortable in his own skin. I was introduced to him at a rally one night and the funny thing is, often you get behind the blue curtain and it’s all talking and you’re part of the conversation, which is helpful for a writer, but as a photographer it’s very frustrating because you want to be ignored so you can observe and make pictures!”

Photograph by Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images.

George H.W. Bush during the general election in Omaha, Nebraska, on October 28, 1988.

“I wasn’t supposed to be on the tarmac here as Bush is vice president and running for president at the time but I knew a press guy on his campaign and I was literally just a kid and he took pity on me. I like this image because it kind of tricks your eye. Because of the flatness of the light and the time of day Bush is almost like this cardboard cutout that someone’s carrying. The composition is nice; the six heads behind him of the Secret Service agents and the priest (who was the president of Boys Town at the time) come together to make a complicated image. And there are little hints, like the banner, and the boom mike, and you can see a couple of American flags, which tell you that this is a campaign event. If Bush’s head wasn’t framed between the guys directly behind him and if his arm was in a different place, the whole composition would be off and the photograph would be wrong to the eye.”